OSX is not perfect for anybody [LWN.net]

OSX is not perfect for anybody

Posted Feb 7, 2012 12:32 UTC (Tue) by danieldk (guest, #27876)
In reply to: OSX is not perfect for anybody by kragilkragil2
Parent article: Canonical pulls funding from Kubuntu

There's only one thing worse than anecdotal evidence, that is no evidence (as in your comment). But, I have many friends who barely know anything about computers and are happy OS X users. In the past, I also installed Linux on family's and friends' machines, but they usually reverted back to Windows in days or weeks. This was caused by everything from incompatibility (OO.org/LibreOffice mangles my PowerPoint presentations), hardware incompatibility, instability (program X crashes), incompleteness (what user-friendly program can I use to edit a movie, like Adobe Premier Elements), installation of software that is not in the distro's repositories and confusion (I want to write an e-mail, but see five different programs).

Of course, some of these issues are not directly related to polish, i.e. as hardware support (since Apple only has to support their own) and the availability of widely used applications (Office, Adobe CS, games, etc.). But, OS X also offers users a simple and polished environment, where they never have to use a terminal to do what they want. Needless to say, they even nailed user-friendliness better with iOS.

Unfortunately, many computer-savvy people are blind to the concerns of the average computer user.

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OSX is not perfect for anybody

Posted Feb 7, 2012 22:46 UTC (Tue) by kragilkragil2 (guest, #76172) [Link] (1 responses)

Bla, you are obviously one of those über-happy Apple customers that post all over the internet.
You said it was perfect and I just don't see it. If they need PowerPoint, Premiere etc they need Windows or OSX, sure. If they want to play big budget games they need Windows and OSX isn't perfect anymore.

If like most people they just want to surf the web, write letters and manage their photos and they don't want to be bothered with updates and viruses they can run Linux just fine. A properly setup Linux box is the most worry-free computer you will find, no terminals involved. So I can also claim it is perfection, can I? My extended family is proof. I had no instabilities on good hardware ( where are your bugreports? :-P I want to see evidence)

OSX is not perfect for anybody

Posted Feb 8, 2012 16:49 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

Agreed, and same experiences here (happy Ubuntu LTS users all around).

I also didn't personally get to enjoy OS X during my half a year of occasional use, it felt cluttered compared to Ubuntu and it was not the easiness of usage utopia it's said to be.

But yes it's annoying that the OS X is the best and only truth folks are everywhere, especially since a) world is not black-and-white and b) it seems ignorant to only praise Apple that has so many negative sides for many average Joes, even if OS X is an ok software to use (Apple and only Apple) computer with.

Like said, too bad most people don't get to experience proper off-the-shelf Linux experience in the PC world.